


my heart ticked for you

by cherrykwannie



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Anorexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, British Comedy, British English, British Slang, Depression, Eating Disorders, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, Insecurity, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety, Tourette's Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrykwannie/pseuds/cherrykwannie
Summary: Boo Seungkwan was diagnosed with Tourette's at the young age of 9, after years of almost constant ticking. He learned how to suppress them well enough to be able to survive in school, but when he was due to make the difficult transition from young, sweet and innocent primary school to the living hell that was a British secondary school , the stress of it all left him too exhausted to hide it any longer. Until he met another group of 12 struggling to adapt boys with a variety of mental disorders.Disclaimer - I am in no way trying to romanticise Tourette's syndrome or any other mental illness. I'm just writing about my own personal experiences and reflecting it onto a character :)
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan & Kim Mingyu, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua, Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Lee Seokmin | DK/Yoon Jeonghan, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	my heart ticked for you

**Author's Note:**

> TW // Tourette's and Tics! 
> 
> thank you for reading!! I'm using this app as a way to improve my punctuation and grammar in preparation for my GCSES next year! :))

I was half-way through my fourth year when it started. I don’t remember much, only that I started needing to crack my neck. I didn’t really understand it; all I knew was that I couldn’t stop it. It was like a mosquito bite that I needed to scratch. My parents took me to see a chiropractor who opined that one of my vertebrae was hitting a nerve. He fixed what he thought was the problem, but my need persisted. I just could not stop twitching. Eventually, my parents took me to my pediatrician, Dr. Newman. My parents had no clue what was happening with me, so when Dr. Newman explained to them that I had Tourette’s syndrome, they were relieved to be finally able to put a name to my unnatural activities. I could say that I was relieved as well, but I don’t think that would be accurate. Something strange and new was happening to me, and I didn’t have enough perspective to understand it. I don’t remember feeling upset, mad, relieved…anything, really. Now I know that Tourette’s is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary vocal and motor tics; all I knew then was that I had to tic I had no choice to let it out.

On bad days, nothing could stop my tics. I jerked my head all around hoping for my neck to crack; I needed it to. If it didn’t, I had to do it more. When I’d finally get a good crack, it would feel so good—better than Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream on a hot day. In fact, the feeling was so great I needed to do it again. And again. And again. My parents tried to comfort me, but I hated for them to touch me while I ticked. I couldn’t take it. It was a feeling so strange, so uncomfortable, like touching a bad burn. No one could touch me while I ticked; I needed to do it alone.

It was even worse at school. There was no hiding from my tics; it was like I was wearing a giant sign that read, **“Look at me! Make fun of me!”** The younger kids especially couldn’t seem to leave me alone. Here I was, in year four , and the tiny, lanky year 2 kid's were making fun of me! Things did improve after a while, but there were always those few choice individuals…

To complicate matters even further, I also began to develop symptoms of anxiety, anorexia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and finally to top it of like the cherry on a cherry bake well tart, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD .

I saw a seemingly never-ending succession of doctors as we found that few medications seemed to have any positive effect on me. Tourette’s is thought to be caused by an excess amount of dopamine in the body, but finding the proper cocktail is essentially a crapshoot. One can only mix and match medications, and hope to land on the right combination eventually. Most of the medicines I took were to treat my tics, but other problems began to arise from my Tourette’s as well. I started to get feelings of anxiety and OCD; for example, if I scratched myself on one side of my body, I’d also have to scratch myself on the other side in order to feel “even.” Everything needed to be ordered “just so.” I also started to tic more often, and in different ways. It got to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d wander around my home ticking my purple stained mouth, neck, and any number of other body parts, obsessing over the teasing I’d inevitably endure the next day at primary school. 

My Parent's had finally decided to pull me out of school for the next 3 years, but that was until my parent's got a phone call from my local secondary school, informing my mother that their school was a perfect place for me to be and I should enrol into secondary. I shook my head desperately at my mum, but she chose to ignore and walk out of the cramped kitchen into the hallway, still interacting with that ghastly ( and probably a nonce ) head teacher.

And that's where my transition into secondary school starts...

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much!! I'll try to update as much as possible! vote for seventeen on mama!!


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